PORT ST. LUCIE - In a turnabout decision, the City Council Monday night gave an initial 4-1 vote to increase the property tax rate by 11 percent.

The council also unanimously approved a 2009-2010 revised total budget of $430 million.

A final vote on the property tax rate and budget is scheduled for a 7 p.m. Sept. 28 public hearing at City Hall.

Last week, the council made a last-ditch effort to avoid an earlier proposed 26 percent property tax increase and held a special meeting to discuss using half of the city’s general fund reserves to help offset a more than $18 million deficit in the general fund.
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FORT PIERCE — Shelitta Woods calls the past six months “miserable.”

“You got to understand, it’d been like 13, 14 years before I had another child,” Woods said. “It was just me and Lil’ Bo, just me and Lil’ Bo, everywhere I go, me and Lil’ Bo.”

Woods’ 16-year-old son, Torenda “Lil’ Bo” Youngblood Jr., was fatally shot at his bus stop March 9, two days after Demetrius Wells, 18, sustained fatal wounds in a drive-by shooting. Two men also were hit by gunfire during separate shootings between the homicides. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — After Julia Rolon-Estrada died of a gunshot wound to the artery in her leg on July 26, 2006, she was wrapped in a blue tarp and again in a green blanket before being buried in the yard of her Port St. Lucie home, near a rear sliding glass door.

A dog trained to find cadavers helped authorities locate the newly tilled grave, which was covered with a wooden pallet holding 20 mulch bags stacked on top.

Rolon-Estrada’s jailed husband, 43-year-old Albert Estrada, state prosecutors say, is the man guilty of killing his wife and high-school sweatheart, who had walked out on him the night before she died at age 39.
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A young man was found shot to death face down on the sidewalk leading to his Stuart apartment overnight.

Stuart police report they were called at about 12:03 a.m. to 931 Nassau Ave. for reports of shots fired in the area. They found 24-year-old Jerome Hutchinson sprawled on the sidewalk with a gunshot to the chest. He died there, police report.

Witnesses said they heard three gun shots and saw three or four men run from the scene. Those witnesses said they men then jumped into a silver Ford Escort with tinted windows and “some type of black stripe designs down the sides of the car” and sped away, police reported.

Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Mike Gerwan at 772-220-3918 or Treasure Coast Crime Stoppers at 1-800-273-8477.

Note to teens facing a potential prison term: don’t use your MySpace page to post photos of police officers and wish “AIDS and genocide to all law enforcement.”

That’s what Stuart resident Jesse Alan Walker, 19, did while awaiting a June trial in which a jury convicted him of robbery with a firearm related to a 2008 home invasion armed robbery. At trial, he was accused of planning the robbery with two then-20-year-old co-defendants, who once played football for Jensen Beach High School.

“I hate the (expletive) police,” Walker posted on MySpace last December, along with photos of Stuart Police officers and derogatory comments.
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FORT PIERCE — A Georgia man accused of walking naked along a beach about 100 yards from two children and their parents faces an exposure charge, according to a recently released arrest affidavit.

Kevin Francis Gallagher, 61, reportedly was spotted Tuesday afternoon by a St. Lucie County Sheriff’s deputy in a patrol boat. He also had a gun in a bag.

The deputy sighted Gallagher, of Snellville, Ga., about 100 yards north of where two children and their parents were swimming. The incident occurred in the 5500 block of South Ocean Drive.

“There was also a couple that told me they were walking down the beach towards the suspect and had to turn around and walk the opposite direction because the suspect was standing at the water edge,” the affidavit states.

Arrested on a misdemeanor charge of exposure of sexual organs, Gallagher was handcuffed and a gun was found in his carry bag.

The affidavit does not specify why Gallagher, listed as unemployed, was walking naked.

By Will Greenlee, TCPalm.com

FORT PIERCE — A 14-year-old boy who police say fled from officers, brandished a gun and barricaded himself inside a home Monday afternoon surrendered after a few hours, officials said.

Patrick Casimir of 1105 North 29th Street was arrested just before 5 p.m. after he walked out of the house in the 3000 block of Avenue L with his hands raised, according to Sgt. Dennis McWilliams. No one was injured, and no shots were fired.

Casimir was charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, armed burglary and two counts of resisting arrest without violence, officials said.
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INDIANTOWN — For years, the owners of J&R Outfitters ran a hunting lodge featuring exotic game such as Asian water buffalo, Nilgai antelope and Pere David deer thinking they had all the required Martin County permits.

But several code violations were discovered at J&R Outfitters last fall after the opening of a shooting range that outraged nearby homeowners with incessant gunfire.

Now Bill Richey and Joe O’Bannon are aiming to keep their hunting lodge open by jumping through all the regulatory hoops that apply to their business at 7600 S.W. Fox Brown Road.

“We never dreamed that what we were doing was illegal and we never tried to get away with anything,” said Richey, a former state prosecutor. “We have been no secret in Martin County. We have been here for 20 years.” (more…)

State officials said they are reviewing the actions of 10 employees at two Treasure Coast prisons in incidents where children were shocked with stun guns when visiting for Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day.

The incidents happened on April 23 at the Indian River Correctional Institution and the Martin Correctional Institution, according to the Department of Corrections. Several children, ages 8 through 14, were at the facilities for the educational initiative, department spokeswoman Jo Ellyn Rackleff said.

Five employees at each facility are on paid administrative leave for the investigation, she said. None of the children were seriously hurt, Rackleff said.
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MARTIN COUNTY — Plans to address zoning and code compliance issues for a western Martin County hunting camp will not include a shooting range at the facility, county planners were told Thursday.

Representatives for J & R Outfitters Inc., which runs J & R Hunting Preserve at 7600 Fox Brown Road near Indiantown, said there are no plans to reopen the gun range that closed at the club in February.

“If a shooting range is ever proposed in the future, that will be the subject of a different site plan,” said Morris Crady of Lucido & Associates land planners. “The shooting range is a concern for several (nearby) property owners, so we’ll have to come back and do this all over again if we decide to have that.”

The hunting preserve leased a portion of its land to South Florida Shooting Sports, which managed a rifle, pistol and skeet shooting range until it voluntarily ceased operations Feb. 3 under fire from adjoining residents and scrutiny of code enforcement officers. (more…)